


The Twilight Dancer

by Inkstained_Dreamer



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Childhood Memories, Fëanorians in a not-so-flattering light, Gen, Second Kinslaying | Sack of Doriath, Violence but I wouldn't call it graphic, a bunch of really good parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25268827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkstained_Dreamer/pseuds/Inkstained_Dreamer
Summary: Dior Eluchíl, Thingol's heir, sole child of Beren and Lúthien, dances through memories as the Fëanorians approach Doriath with fire and sword.
Relationships: Beren Erchamion/Lúthien Tinúviel, Dior Eluchíl/Nimloth of Doriath
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	The Twilight Dancer

His earliest memories were of dancing. His mother had swayed with him in her arms, her dark hair a curtain around them.  _ Dior, Dior, child of my heart _ , she had crooned, and he had leaned his head on her chest and felt the thumping of that heart, and had thought it beat only for him. 

His father had not danced, but he was a creature of motion just as his mother was. He had run, Dior in his arms, across the soft green grass of Tol Galen, and the wind had taken their breath away. It had felt like they were flying. 

But both of his parents had sung. Their voices had intermingled with the rushing of the water, and the wind in the trees; it had been like distilled starlight, and Dior had fallen asleep to the sound of their clear voices and dreamed that he was floating on music, that the melodies were carrying him up, up towards the sky. 

~ ~ ~

He can feel his heartbeat now, can feel the blood rushing in his ears. There is still a music to it, but it is the music of fear. They are coming, Dior knows it, coming with their banners of scarlet and their bright swords. The halls of Menegroth are silent except for the ever-present trickle of streams.

Dior puts a hand to his heart, and knows that its beats are numbered.

~ ~ ~

He had held his mother’s hands and spun beneath a violet sky. His small feet had followed her larger ones, stepping lightly through the grass, arms lifted, hands twisting. His father had watched them, smiling. Fireflies had winked like jewels in the warm evening air, and Dior had twirled through them, watching the slender figure of his mother up ahead.

She had turned back, looking at him, her face pale in the dusk. Dior had smiled, because he could feel her love for him, as if her heart were his own. He had opened his mouth and sang, not words, just sounds of joy, and she had run to him and lifted him in her arms, and then his father was there, wrapping his arms around them both, and all three of their voices had lifted in song, and the world seemed to hold its breath around them. 

~ ~ ~

Doriath is holding its breath now. They are coming ever closer, minute by minute, and Dior can almost hear the tramp of their iron-shod feet on the frozen ground. He looks to his left, where Nimloth sits. Her face is pale, her hands clenched in her lap. Dior reaches out and touches her cold fingers, entangling their hands. She looks at him, her eyes full of worry, her lips pressed tightly together to stop the quivering. She is trembling anyways. They do not speak. 

~ ~ ~ 

Dior had his mother’s dark hair, her pale skin, her grey eyes. His frame was hers, slender and tall. His hands, though, were his father’s, long fingered and strong. Freckles like tiny stars were sprinkled across his skin. His mother had moved her finger between them, connecting, connecting. She had written her love on his arms in invisible ink, and sung his name into the wind.  _ Starboy, _ his father had called him.  _ My dancing child. You have stars in your eyes. _ He had cupped Dior’s face in his hands and told him he loved him again and again, and Dior never doubted it. Love was as much a part of him as blood and bone.

He had seen Nimloth for the first time by the banks of the river Adurant. He was dancing, twirling in the twilight, reveling in the cool autumn air and the brilliant heavens. She was standing, her back to him, and he had stopped, marveling at her silver hair, glimmering palely in the starlight. She had turned, late-blooming flowers in her hands, and looked into Dior’s eyes, and she had smiled as if she knew him well.

And they had walked together all through that evening, and talked in soft tones, though afterwards neither remembered what they had spoken of. Many days after that they would meet on the banks of the river, and they talked of many things, and held each other's hands, and Dior taught her to dance, and she taught him to speak to the birds in the woods. They lay on the ground and stared up at the sky through the emerald leaves, and their hair, light and dark, intermingled on the dappled grass.

Love trailed after Dior like a cloak in those days. It wrapped itself about him, and held him in its embrace, and he danced for the pure joy of living.

~ ~ ~

They are here. Here, with their clinking mail and their hard faces and the stars glittering on their breasts. Their swords are sheathed, for the present, but Dior knows that they do not come with peace. One of them, Maedhros, red-haired and grim, steps forward, and his words are fair, almost kind. 

_ We will leave Doriath in peace if you give us the jewel. Just the jewel. We have no desire to destroy this place. Give us the silmaril and all will be well. _

Dior can hear his heart beating. He can feel Nimloth’s hand trembling in his. He shakes his head. The time for friendship has passed. 

Maedhros is pushed aside by one of his brothers; Dior knows it to be Celegorm by the blond hair. His sword is out, bright and shining silver. He is laughing, his eyes wild and his face proud.

_ Who are you to defy us? Thief! You sit so proud on your little throne. The jewel is not yours, any more than it was your parents’ to take. It belongs to us by right. Relinquish it, or you will perish by our swords.  _

Dior presses his lips together and shakes his head again. He can feel the blood pounding in his ears. Beside him, Nimloth is no longer trembling. She is straight and still, unmoving as a statue.

Dior hears the tiny gasp that passes her lips when Celegorm breaks from the ranks of his brothers and comes towards them.

And Dior hears too the whimper of surprise and pain that comes before the wail when Celegorm’s silver sword pierces her chest and comes away red. He feels her hand go slack in his, hears her rattling breaths coming ever slower. 

His heart is pounding a frantic drumbeat as he rises and draws his sword.

~ ~ ~

_ The secret of dancing, Dior, is to let go and hold on in equal measure.  _ His mother had said that one day, when Dior had collapsed on the greensward beside her, dizzy and flushed from twirling and leaping.  _ You must let go of the things that frighten you, but you must hold on to the things that you love. Balance is everything, my wonderful child. You walk an in-between path, Dior, and it may be a difficult one. But it can be beautiful. And that beauty, that sorrowful beauty, is why we dance.  _

He had not really understood it at the time, but he loved hearing his mother’s lilting voice, and her cool hand was stroking his forehead, and he was very comfortable, so he hadn’t asked what she meant. He was content to lie there, leaning on her, feeling the ends of her dark hair tickle his nose. 

Things had been simple then. Perhaps even perfect.

~ ~ ~

There is not so much of a difference as you would think between fencing and dancing. You stay balanced, your feet barely touch the ground, you keep your eyes on your partner and you push away your fear when it rises up in your throat. Your heartbeat thumps out a rhythm for your feet to follow. Parry, thrust, dodge, block. You look into the blue eyes across from you and see mad light shining there. You can see him breathing, chest rising and falling, blond hair whipping over his face. You can’t hear Nimloth’s breathing anymore and you clench your hand tightly on the hilt of your sword.

You scratch his wrist; a line of bright blood appears, shining red against his skin. You hear his breathing hitch. You look in his eyes and see a flicker of fear there, but you look away. Pity is a thing you can’t afford. 

His hair is almost the same color as your sons’, though. Almost. 

~ ~ ~

When they were born, tiny and pink and squalling, he had wept for the joy of it. He had looked into their half-open eyes, and had felt like his heart would burst with love. It was twilight when they were born; the stars just beginning to peep out from the purple clouds. When Nimloth had fallen asleep, her sons in her arms, he had run outside and danced, swaying and bending with pure delight, exulting beneath the starry heavens.

_ Eluréd and Elurín.  _ They were perfect to Dior, who had fallen asleep that night beside Nimloth, a smile still on his lips. 

They had grown, silver-haired and violet-eyed like their mother, but with faces all their own. Dior had danced with them at dusk, just as he had once done with his mother, not so long before. 

When Elwing, dark-haired and pale-skinned like Dior, had arrived, his joy had only grown. The twins had put flowers in her downy hair, and she had laughed, grabbing at their fingers. Dior sang her lullabies, and walked with her under the stars when she couldn’t sleep; listening to the beat of her tiny heart. 

Love had surrounded them like a golden mist, and all their days at that time had seemed to be full of magic and possibility. Innocence lends everything beauty, after all. 

~ ~ ~

Your limbs are getting heavier, but you are strong, and you keep going. Your sword is a silver blur. You are bleeding now; red scratches on your jaw and on your forearm. Sweat drips in your eyes, and the world blurs, like it used to when you would twirl barefoot on the soft grass.

You think of your sons, hidden in the caves, and your daughter, who is hopefully long gone. Your heart aches. You think of your mother, and your father, and Nimloth, who is dying or already dead, you cannot tell. You can hear your heartbeat pounding, pounding in your ears. 

Celegorm is laughing, a wild sound, almost hysterical. And then you feel icy pain in your abdomen, and you stumble onto your knees, and your heart is a wild drum, thumping in your chest, as if it knows that it doesn’t have much longer to mark the tempo of life. Your hand slips off your sword, and you don’t know how it ended up in Celegorm’s chest. He is falling, falling beside you, his laughter still on his lips. 

_ The secret of dancing, Dior, is to let go and hold on in equal measure.  _

But what do you do when everything is being pulled away from you?

_ You must let go of the things that frighten you, but you must hold on to the things that you love. _

And so you hold on to Nimloth, and you hold on to Eluréd and Elurín and little Elwing, and you hold on to your parents who are gone forever, as the world falls apart around you, a world burning in scarlet and silver. 

And then you let go, dancing away into the twilit regions between nowhere and anywhere.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Dior has always intrigued me as a character. The story of his parents gets a good chunk of The Silmarillion, as well as a whole other book, but Dior gets a few paragraphs and then falls out of the story for good. I wanted to explore his relationship with his parents, as well as what it would have been like to be confronted by the Fëanorians at their absolute worst. I apologize for any discrepancies between my story and the canon.  
> As always, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed.


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